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irban Land, Traffic
id Housing Problems

AN ATTEMPTED SOLUTION
True " Land Monopoly " and its Advantages

BY

A. W. ALDERSON

Price 6d. Net.

LONDON

P. S. KING & SON

ORCHARD HOUSE

WESTMINSTER

1912

HT153

URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC

AND

HOUSING PROBLEMS

AN ATTEMPTED SOLUTION
True *' Land Monopoly " and its Advantages

By

A. W. ALDERSON

LONDON

P. S. KING & SON

ORCHARD HOUSE

WESTMINSTER

1912

HTI53

(^'irSQ 6"

URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND
HOUSING PROBLEMS

AN ATTEMPTED SOLUTION

True "Land Monopoly" and its Advantages

By A. W. ALDERSON

The growth of our large cities has given rise to
many problems of which the Land, Traffic, and
Housing questions are not the least acute. The
Urban Land Question (ground values), as everyone
knows, is a burning one. Also, in such towns as
London the traffic problem has reached such dimen-
sions that Commissions of Enquiry have been
appointed to study the matter, but up to the present,
so far as I am aware, their findings and recom-
mendations have not been given effect to. And
meanwhile the problem waxes.

The slum question is also ever with us and hourly
demands a solution.

In the present pamphlet an attempt is made to
solve these questions. It is not written to support
any political party : it is intended to be impartial
and unbiassed, fair to all : no injustice to anyone
is intended or implied. It is not written to support

4 URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND

landlord or tenant, Conservatism or Liberalism,
Socialism or Individualism, Collectivism or Henry
Georgeism.

The present pamphlet deals largely with London,
but what is said about London applies equally well,
mutatis mutandis, to all other cities or towns, or even
villages, either in England or anywhere else in the
world.

As an indication of the feeling about land, I may
mention that the Liberal candidate at the recent
Hanley election (I write on August 13th, 1912)
advocated, I understand, a tax of zd. in the £ on
the capital value of the land of the British Isles,
which he valued at £6,000,000,000, estimating the
annual income arising therefrom at £300,000,000.
Such a tax would produce £50,000,000 per annum.
But a tax of 2d. in the £ on the capital value is
equivalent to 3s. ^d. in the £ on the annual value,
Thus, land would pay a special extra income tax of
3s. 4d. in the £. Such a tax would probably be
popular among the landless, who are the majority,
because people are usually ready to consent to taxes
which they themselves will not have to pay. There
can be no doubt also that popular opinion is often
hostile to landlords, on account of the huge sums
which have to be paid to the latter for their land
when it has to be acquired by a public body to carry
out some public improvement. Some reformers
contend that improvements are rendered virtually
impossible by these prohibitive prices, which, they
assert, are due to the " land monopoly."

HOUSING PROBLEMS 5

The programme of the single-taxers is " the
aboHtion of all taxation upon labour, and the pro-
ducts of labour, and the earnings of labour, and the
imposition of a tax of 20s. in the £ on all land values."
The Hanky election proves that that policy will
secure much popularity.

Now I venture to suggest in this pamphlet that
the prevailing ideas about " land monopoly " are
erroneous. I admit that under the present system
all public improvements necessitating the purchase
of land in towns are very costly. Take the following
as an instance : the London Traffic Commission,
to relieve the congestion of the London streets,
advised the construction of two new thoroughfares,
each 140 feet wide, one from east to west 4I miles
long, the other from north to south 4I miles long,
total 9 miles. And the cost ? £15,500,000 for the
first {i.e., £3,250,000 per mile) and £8,500,000 for
the second (£2,000,000 per mile), making a total of
£24,000,000. (Not all of this is cost of land, but
much is.) Up to March, 1908, London had already
spent £14,200,000 on street improvement, and it
was felt that this £24,000,000 scheme could not be
taken up on account of the cost.

It is a fact that the land alone (excluding buildings)
in parts of London is worth quite £1,000,000 an
acre.

I suggest that land for town improvements is so
costly because it is not a monopoly ; if it were, it
could be obtained for nothing. Let me explain.
When a municipality requires a strip of land for a

6 URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND

new street it finds that this strip is not all owned by
the same man ; it has, therefore, to treat with each
individual owner and buy from him his own par-
ticular plot of ground. Thus the strip required may
be made up of the property of hundreds of different
owners, each one of whom has to be bought out.
Furthermore, all the rest of the town is owned on
the same principle, i.e., by a multitude of different
owners. For instance, the land London is built on
is owned by many thousands of people. If a
London landlord possesses loo acres of land he is
accounted a large landowner.

If all the land in London was owned by one owner
(either an individual or a Company) then there
would be a real " land monopoly " in London
(which there is not at present), and I contend that
London would gain immensely thereby. How ?
In this way. If all the land within a radius of say
25 miles from the Bank of England were owned
by a single Syndicate or Trust, that Syndicate
would be able to give, for nothing, without loss to
itself, all the land required for improvements.
Under the existing system, suppose it were required
to make a new street 210 feet wide and i mile long
through the heart of the City (of London). That
would require 25 acres of land. Land in the City is
worth on an average say £500,000 an acre, so that
the ground required would cost about £12,000,000.
If all the land within 25 miles from the Bank were
owned by one Trust (or person) it could give those
25 acres for nothing, without loss to itself as stated

HOUSING PROBLEMS 7

above, thus saving London £12,000,000 on that one
improvement.

Without loss to itself, you may ask, how can that
be ? The explanation is this : the people who
previously lived on these 25 acres would simply
move on to another section of the Syndicate's land,
where they would pay the same rent as they did
before, the only difference being that the Syndicate
would get the rent from another section of its
property and not from the 25 acres under discussion.
The aggregate rent would not decline.

When all the land a town is built on (say London)
is owned by one person or Syndicate there is a true
" land monopoly." The Syndicate would not care
which part of its estate its revenue was derived from.
So long as people did not move off the estate the
Syndicate would get the same rent. Even if half
the Syndicate's estate were totally stripped of
buildings and converted into parks, the Syndicate
would not lose, because the remaining half of its
property would double in value and produce as much
rent as the whole used to produce previously. So
long as the population of London (and, of course,
the wealth per capita) did not decrease, the
Sjmdicate's rents would also not decrease even if
the population, instead of being spread over say
600 square miles were concentrated into say 100
square miles. The 100 square miles would be worth
as much, and would produce as much rent, as the
600 square miles.

Under the present system this is what happens.

8 URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND

Suppose there are two landlords, whom we will call

A. and B. A. owns an acre of ground at Croydon,

B. an acre at Hampstead. If A.'s tenants vacate the
acre at Croydon and go to live on B.'s acre at
Hampstead, then A. loses and B. gains, because the
rent that was formerly paid to A. now goes into B.'s
pocket. But if both acres (the one at Croydon
and the one at Hampstead) belonged to the same
person (or Syndicate), the transfer of tenants from
Croydon to Hampstead would make no difference,
the owner would draw exactly the same revenue ;
the only difference being that it would be derived
from Hampstead instead of Croydon.

In the same way, under the present system, it
would be highly unreasonable to expect individual
landlords to give up their land for nothing to
municipalities, because the latter needed it to make
a new street. Suppose I own a plot of ground bring-
ing in £i,ooo a year. The London County Council
needs that plot for a new street. I am perfectly
justified in exacting for that plot the full market
value (and something more as compensation for
disturbance) because, unless I do, it means a dead
loss to me of £i,ooo a year. The tenants who are
ejected from my plot to make room for the new
street will settle on some other man's plot, and will
pay him the £i,ooo a year that used to come to me ;
that won't do me any good, however. But if all
the land round about belonged to me, I should be
quite willing to make the London County Council
a present of the land they required for their new

HOUSING PROBLEMS 9

street, because (a) I should lose nothing by it, as the
ejected tenants would stiU settle on my property
(though, of course, on another portion of it), and I
should still get my £1,000 a year ; and (6) because
the new street would actually improve my property,
and eventually make it more valuable.

The advantages of a true " land monopoly " or
singleness of ownership, as sketched in this pamphlet,
are manifold. Take its effect on London (or any
other town for that matter) . The London of to-day
(August, 1912) is a town of narrow, crooked streets,
which get so choked with traffic that it is hard to
make any progress at times. The narrowness of
the streets has made us build tube railways which
are costly and slow. (The speed from terminus to
terminus on the Central London Railway is only
about 17 miles an hour.) From the Bank to
Piccadilly Circus in a straight line is about 2 miles,
and it usually takes about 25 minutes and costs s^-
(tube to Oxford Circus, 'bus thence), when it should
take only 4 minutes and cost id. Fleet Street is
about 50 or 60 feet wide ; the Strand 60 ; Oxford
Street 65 ; Piccadilly 75 (it is narrower than that
at Swan & Edgar's) ; Cheapside 60 ; Regent
Street 85 ; Bond Street less than 50 in parts, I
should think. None of our streets are straight for
any distance either.

These narrow, crooked streets have a harmful
effect on the health and wealth of our people : they
prevent easy access to the country ; they are not
airy but stuffy, they hinder the free entrance of

10 URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND

sunlight, they waste time because they are winding,
and also because they get congested, they are ugly
and they are dangerous : 416 people were killed
and 15,768 injured in the London streets in 191 1
[The Sphere, July 27th, 1912).

Under the method herein suggested London could
be endowed with a system of wide, straight streets.
The main arteries, instead of being about 70 feet
wide, could be 300 or even more. Light and air
would be abundant. Distances could be covered in
less than half the time and at less than half the
expense. The housing problem would be largely
solved. The knell of the slum with its squalor and
disease would be tolled and the gain in the people's
health would be enormous. Communication would
be cheap, fast and easy. A wide street could take,
just under the roadway on the cheap cut-and-cover
system, four (or even six) railway tracks. This
would admit of non-stop fast services from the rim
of London to the centre. Speeds of 48 mUes an hour {4
miles in 5 minutes) would be possible on such tracks.

Also, take the question of parks and open spaces.
A glance at the map will show that East and North
London (and other parts) are deficient in such.
Under the present system the expense of providing
them would be prohibitive on account of the cost of
land. But under single ownership the land could be
given free, only the houses, many of them cheap, old
and jerry-built, requiring to be purchased and pulled
down. We could thus multiply parks and open
spaces many-fold.

HOUSING PROBLEMS ii

You may say : If all the land London stands on
were in the hands of one Syndicate, it would be able
to charge what it liked, knowing that Londoners,
being compelled to live near their work, would have
to submit : there would be no competition. I
reply : that is true in theory but not in practice.
Henry George used to say that landlords, being
owners of the earth, could say to. the rest of the
population : " Get off my earth." So they could
in theory, but it wouldn't work out like that in
practice. The EngHsh railway companies have a
monopoly but they can't charge what they Hke.
If the land monopoly were to abuse its privileges it
would find that the public would insist on restriction
and regulation. But it would not abuse : a small
man (or concern) is always more rapacious and cheese-
paring than a big one, and naturally so, because
IS. is more to the former than £i is to the latter.

Another argument might be this : Perhaps the
Syndicate would not give land for new streets for
nothing, but would charge full market value. But
in that case the Municipality (or Government)
would simply not proceed with the vast improve-
ments mentioned herein and the Syndicate would,
therefore, lose, because it must be remembered
that every new avenue, park, etc., improves the
Syndicate's property.

Likewise, would it not be fair to compel the
Syndicate to provide free land for the new streets,
seeing that it, for the reasons previously stated,
dould not lose thereby ? At the present moment the

12 URBAN LAND, TRAFFIC AND

owner of a plot of building land is compelled to set
aside a certain area of it for roads, and that area is,
in proportion to the total area available for building,
much greater than the space required for the new
avenues described previously in this pamphlet.

To bring all the land of a town under single
ownership would necessitate the formation of a
Company or Syndicate of which the shareholders
would be all the landowners (and possibly
leaseholders). The landowners (now shareholders)
instead of getting rents would get dividends. How
could a railway be efficiently worked if one mile of
it belonged to one man, the next half-mile to another,
the next half-mile to a third man, and so on ? No,
the best way is to have unity of ownership and
control.

Is this project feasible ? I expect that there will
be differences of opinion on that point, but I should
think that with a little co-operation it could be
managed. The dream of to-day often becomes the
reality of to-morrow. However, I express no
definite opinion on that point.

I should think that the following are some of the
reasons for and against the adoption of this scheme :
The landlords may say that the present system
suits them well enough, therefore why, go to all the
trouble of forming a Syndicate ? On the other
hand, the scheme will favour the landlords in this
way : The present system is arousing public
hostility, and a powerful party demanding the
taxation of land values is arising. This party will

HOUSING PROBLEMS 13

find the ground considerably cut from under its
feet by the free gift of land for public improvements
which this scheme will render possible. Likewise
many people will become financially interested in
urban land by buying shares : shares are easier and
far cheaper to buy than plots of ground.

It must not, however, be supposed from the
foregoing that this pamphlet is written in the interest
of landlords : the scheme happens to favour them in
some respects, that is all.

Another way in which the scheme would be to
the advantage of both landlords and public is this :
At present various industries could be started were
conditions more favourable. Well, the Land Syndi-
cate could give, for a term of years, free sites for
the factories and workshops necessary for such new
industries, on the principle of throwing a sprat to
catch a mackerel. The Syndicate would recoup
itself by the new rents and increased rents created
by these new industries. Individual owners cannot
afford to give free sites for factories, docks, etc.

I repeat that there is nothing in this pamphlet
intended to be unfair : if it be deemed unjust to
anyone then I withdraw it. The amehoration of
social conditions should not be founded on injustice.
The fullest compensation should be granted where
rightfully due.

I have not dealt with every point, in this booklet,
because space precludes it. I will, however, return
to this question in a later pamphlet in which the
matter will be looked at from a different standpoint.

14 URBAN LAND AND HOUSING PROBLEMS

You may ask : Won't Land Nationalisation
achieve all you want and more ? I answer that
Land Nationalisation, in the opinion of competent
judges, does not seem to be practical politics, at
present, at any rate. Mr. Gladstone, I beheve, once
said about it : " If you pay for the land, it is folly,
if you don't it is robbery."

I may also mention that the MetropoUtan Water
Board estimates that in i960 the population of
London will be i6| milHons. Will the present narrow
streets suffice for that ? The above scheme, however,
will provide ample room for a London of any size.

Even if this pamphlet does not convince on all
points, I hope it will be conceded that it is an
impartial attempt to solve some of the pressing
problems of the day : it may, perhaps, also prove
that a real " land monopoly " has its advantages.

b. KING & SON, ORCHARD HOUSE, WESTMINSTLR.

Pressboard

Pamphlet

Binder

Gay lord Bros.

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PAT. JAN iy 1908

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